Description
Book SynopsisThe medical section of the
Kitāb al-Naṣīḥatayn or Book of the Two Pieces of Advice by the medieval author cAbd al-Laţīf ibn Yūsuf al-Baghdādī (1162-1231) challenges the idea that Arabic-Islamic medicine declined after the twelfth century A.D. Moreover, it offers some interesting insights into the social history of medicine. cAbd al-Laţīf composed his work as a diatribe directed against false knowledge, and employed the framework of Greek medical epistemology to criticize the rationalist physicians of his day and age. He argued that female and itinerant practitioners, relying on experience, were superior to some rationalists, and decried the wickedness and incompetence of certain medical practitioners of his time. In addition, he lambasted contemporaneous medical education because it put too much faith in a restricted number of textbooks such as the
Canon of Medicine by the celebrated physician Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), or chiefly relied on imperfect abridgments. The medical section of the
Book of the Two Pieces of Advice is translated here for the first time in a modern language. It is preceded by a lengthy introduction that highlights cAbd al-Laţīfs complicated relation to both medicine and alchemy. The present study also contains the first full bibliography on cAbd al-Laţīf ibn Yūsuf al-Baghdādī and his milieu.
Table of ContentsContents: Medieval Islam – Social history – Medical epistemology – Women – Quacks and charlatans – Medical education – cAbd al-Laţīf ibn Yūsuf al-Baghdādī (1162-1231) – Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, † 1037).
